


Bullied

by hailingstars



Series: Febuwhump [8]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Febuwhump, Grooming, Manipulation, Protective May Parker (Spider-Man), Protective Tony Stark, Sexual Assault, of a minor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-24 18:18:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17709128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hailingstars/pseuds/hailingstars
Summary: Peter gets bullied by his teacher, Mr. Westcott, after correcting him in class, and it quickly turns into something more sinister.Tony and May are not fans of this.





	Bullied

**Author's Note:**

> BEFORE READING READ THIS TRIGGER WARNING. Here is one last warning that this story does contain the sexual assault of a minor. Please turn back now if it will trigger you.

Mr. Westcott’s interest in Peter started with an accident. 

He didn’t make a habit of correcting teachers. Especially not in front of the whole class, but he was off his game, tired from a late night of patrolling, and Mr. Westcott called on him to answer the equation on the board. Except. The formulas written next to it were all wrong, and Peter figured he wasn’t the only one who had a late night based on the bags under Mr. Westcott’s eyes.

He stayed seated, he explained, as polite as he could, the issues with what was written on the board, and watched Mr. Westcott’s eyes dim. The classroom was silent after Peter was done talking. His face burned red from the attention, and those few seconds were the longest of Peter’s life.

Finally, Mr. Westcott broke the silence by saying, “Oh, well aren’t you a genius? Maybe Parker here should be teaching this class instead of me.”

There were a few nervous chuckles, and Peter forced himself to smile, despite his Spidey senses screaming at him. When Mr. Stark called him genius it was a term of endearment, even if he was being sarcastic, but when Mr. Westcott called him genius… it was different. It jabbed. It made him feel like the opposite of a genius. It eroded at something inside, and it was a sign of trouble.

The next day Peter was still standing when the late bell rang for Mr. Westcott’s class. He wasn’t the only one out of his seat, but he was the only one who got detention for it. A real drag, too, because Peter had to send a text to Mr. Stark telling him he couldn’t make it.

His reply was almost instant.

_Detention? Finally I’m getting through to you, nice job, kid_

Peter smiled as he shoved his phone back into his bookbag. Mr. Stark spent a lot of time when they were together encouraging what he called healthy rebellion.

“Don’t be afraid to break the rules sometimes, Pete,” he’d say, then later he’d add, as an afterthought, “Unless they’re my rules.”

So, he walked into Mr. Westcott’s classroom for detention that evening with his head high, in a good mood, despite the circumstances. He slipped into his desk, started to get his homework out, but Mr. Westcott stopped him. 

“No. I have something else for you to work on.” He put a blank notebook on his desk. “I want you to write I will be in my seat when the bell rings for Mr. Westcott’s class.”

Peter frowned. He hadn’t been told to write lines since elementary school. “How many times?” 

“Until detention hours are over,” he said. His back was turned, and he was already half-way back to his desk.

He stared at the blank page for a beat, then began writing. It wasn’t that bad. Nothing he couldn’t handle, even if it was a bit monotonous. He could deal with anything for forty-five minutes, or at least, he thought he could. Forty-five minutes was a long time when Peter started getting detention every day.

For little things, for nothing at all. For getting an F on a test Peter was sure deserved an A.

When Mr. Westcott handed the test back to him, it was the F was plastered obnoxiously large, in red marker, along with a note to see him at the end of the day for another detention.

“I guess even geniuses have their bad days,” he said, as he moved on, as he passed the other tests back to the other students.

The rest of the day was filled with a sense of dread. He was tired of writing lines, tired of being forced to give up forty-five minutes of his life so an old man could flex his ego, but most of all, tired of having to text Mr. Stark that he couldn’t help him in the workshop after school.

His replies were always immediate, but that was the first time one ever expressed concern.

_Again? Should I be worried you’re taking this rebellion thing too far?_

After the final bell rang, Peter made his way to Mr. Westcott’s classroom and sat at his desk. The notebook was already waiting for him. It was the same one every detention, but he wasn’t always assigned the same lines. They got weirder and weirder, went from phrases like _I will not ignore Mr. Westcott when he’s talking_ to _I will not glare at Mr. Westcott._

He wasn’t sure he ever did any of those things, but maybe he had. Mr. Westcott wasn’t his favorite person, so it was entirely possible. He wrote the lines without complaint, but that day, when Mr. Westcott told him what to write, Peter snapped his head up fast.

“What?”

“Should I speak more slowly?” asked Mr. Westcott.

“Umm no.”

Mr. Westcott nodded, and made a motion that meant he was supposed to get to work, as if he was signaling an animal or something subhuman. That time Peter did glare at him, when he wasn’t looking, before settling his gaze down at the blank paper.

He didn’t want to write it. He knew both May and Mr. Stark wouldn’t want him to, either, but he didn’t have a choice. He gritted his teeth, forced his hand to move across the page, and wrote what was expected of him. 

_I’m not smarter than Mr. Westcott._

Each line felt gross and wrong. It chipped away at him, cut him to the bone, but writing did get easier and easier, until he was numb, until he didn’t really care all that much about it. They were just words. Maybe they were true, probably they were. It didn’t mean Peter had to care. Being smart wasn’t all that important to him anymore.

Peter didn’t call out Mr. Westcott the next day in class when he wrote the wrong equations on the board, not even when he looked right at him, and gave him the floor to speak. He stayed quiet, he stayed small, and finally, he didn’t get detention.

*

Stepping into the workshop and seeing Mr. Stark for the first time in weeks was like a breath of fresh air. He felt it than more than he ever had before, that Mr. Stark’s presence was drenched with safety. He was an asylum when the rest of his world seemed to be crumbling from under him. 

“Oh my god,” said Mr. Stark, after Peter stepped into the room. “Is that Peter Parker? In my workshop? How did I get so lucky?”

“Maybe you were nice to a wizard in a past life,” said Peter. An odd thing to say, but he didn’t really have to censor himself there in the workshop. He could be a nerd, and Mr. Stark would joke, but they were jokes that didn’t cut. 

“Doesn’t sound like something I would do,” said Mr. Stark. He scratched his head. “Uh, do we need to have a talk… about behavior? You’re what, getting detention every night now?”

Peter shook his head and jumped up to sit on the work station, ignoring the chair. “No, my teacher – Mr. Westcott, he’s just out to get me because I corrected him in class one day, I know I shouldn’t have, so it’s my fault – “

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” Mr. Stark cut him off, and his hand flew up and pointed at him. “If someone is wrong, you call them out on it. Period. I don’t care what kind of authority they think they have.”

Peter shifted around, uncomfortable, because if not correcting Mr. Westcott in class and making himself smaller meant he wouldn’t get anymore detentions, anymore lines to write, that was what he was going to do.

“Sounds like a useless teacher to me. With your intellect and leadership skills, you could be teaching that class yourself,” said Mr. Stark. “Do you need me to talk to the school? To get him off your back?” 

“No, that’s okay. I can deal.”

He sincerely thought he could. Mr. Westcott wasn’t so big. It took dozens of forty-five-minute sessions of writing lines for him to make Peter feel dumb, and only one compliment from Mr. Stark to make him confident that he wasn’t. 

Peter needed that confidence to last him the rest of the semester, although he knew it wouldn’t. Every time he sat in class, and didn’t raise his hand to answer questions, and worked hard to keep a neutral expression on his face while he maintained a posture that would make it obvious he was paying attention, he felt a little more drained. 

More drained than serving out a detention and writing lines. He wasn’t so sure all this effort to avoid them was worth, and by Friday, after avoiding them for three straight days, he knew it wasn’t. Mr. Westcott made him stop by his classroom after the last bell anyway.

He sat down at his desk, noticed that dreaded notebook was nowhere in sight, but somehow, that made the knot in his stomach a bit tighter. It got even tighter when Mr. Westcott approached his desk and stood by too close. 

“You can relax,” said Mr. Westcott. His tone was different. Wrong. A lie. Peter did not relax. “You’re not in trouble. I just wanted to compliment you. You’ve been doing so good in class these last couple of days. I’ve seen a big improvement, it’s like you’re a completely different person.”

Not the person he wanted to be, though, and maybe that was the real intent behind Mr. Westcott’s words. To mock, to sting, to flex his imaginary power. 

“How old are you? Seventeen?”

“Sixteen,” corrected Peter.

“Seventeen is practically an adult,” said Mr. Westcott. “I think you’re earned the right to call me by my first name. Skip. Just when we’re spending time together.”

It seemed strange to Peter that Mr. Westcott was proclaiming him an adult when he was speaking to him in a tone that suggested he was a much younger child, and he hardly thought of detention as spending time together. More like spending time in hell.

“Mr. Westcott, if I’m not in trouble I really need to go, I have my internship.”

“You can spare a few more minutes.” 

Mr. Westcott stepped closer, they were so close their knees touched, and Peter wanted to bolt. He didn’t. He was frozen in place. His body was stuck to the chair while his consciousness tried to fly from his body as Mr. Westcott put his hand on Peter’s thigh. He was slowly moving it up, closer and closer, while Peter’s senses screamed, and his breath hitched.

Internal voices swirled in his head, but the loudest one sounded like Mr. Stark. It broke through the numbness, and the next thing Peter knew, he stood up, he pushed Mr. Westcott into the neighboring desk and fled to door.

“Peter!” yelled Mr. Westcott. His voice echoed around in Peter’s head. He stopped at the door but didn’t turn. “You know better than to tell anyone about this. Who would believe you?”

Peter took off. He sprinted through the halls of Midtown and the streets of New York, so fast and hard that his lungs were ready to explode. He didn’t stop, though. He had to get there, to place that was safe, to one of the only two people in the world who would believe anything he told them, without question.

He tore out of the elevator and into Mr. Stark’s penthouse, out of breath and panting.

“Peter? Oh, good. I was just about to order dinner. What sounds good? Sushi? Thai? Pizza?” said Mr. Stark. He looked up from his phone. “What’s wrong?”

“S-something happened.. with Mr. Westcott,” said Peter. He managed to keep it together up until that point. The safety Mr. Stark eluded made it okay to cry. “I… I pushed him…” 

Mr. Stark’s face folded into a frown. His jaw became tight and there was fury in his eyes. He stepped forward and grabbed Peter by the arms, steadying him when he hadn’t even realized he needed the support.

“What did he do?”

It was easier to confess his own crimes than the ones perpetrated against him. It was humiliating, and terrifying. Peter didn’t want to be anyone’s victim, but like a switch flipping, he remembered something May used to say all the time. If he stayed silent about Mr. Westcott, the more power he gave him.

“Umm,” said Peter. He took a couple steps backward, out of Mr. Stark’s hold and held his hand up to stare at it. “He sort of… put his hand – “ 

Peter didn’t get the chance to finish. Mr. Stark had already turned on his heel and stalked off towards the balcony, where Peter was sure his suit would meet him.

“Wait! What are you doing?”

“I’m going down to that school and I’m gonna – “

“-No you can’t.” Peter ran to catch up with him.

“There’s a fucking pedophile working there. What do you expect me to do?”

Peter looked at the floor. He knew Mr. Stark wasn’t raising his voice because of him, but it didn’t mean he hated it any less.

“I just thought… we could call the police,” said Peter. “And you could stay with me when I make the report.”

Mr. Stark turned his head, setting his gaze out to the balcony, then looked back at Peter and released a breath. He walked back toward him and started to put his arms out for a hug but withdrew. As if now he thought he didn’t have permission. Peter didn’t get his hug until he closed the distance and laid his head on Mr. Stark’s shoulder.

“They might not be able to do anything,” said Mr. Stark. “And if they do, he won’t be in jail forever.” 

“I know.”

He felt Mr. Stark’s hand go through his hair, then a kiss on the top of his head. It was safe, and Peter was safe.

*

The police came, and they asked questions and Peter answered while Mr. Stark sat next to him on the couch. It was clinical for them. Their questions were routine, and without emotion, and Peter couldn’t help but to feel a little thankful for that. Once it was done, and they left, Peter spent the rest of the night clinging to Mr. Stark while they watched movies.

He did wonder what was taking May so long to join them at the penthouse. He wasn’t left wondering too long. Mr. Stark left the room to take a phone call, and when he came back, he threw a jacket at Peter.

“Come on,” he told him. “We have to go pick up your aunt from the police station.” 

“What? Why?”

“… she got to Westcott before they did.”

Getting May out of jail was easy, just like everything appeared to be for Mr. Stark, and instead of going back to their apartment, they went back to the penthouse where they planned on staying for the next couple of weeks, until all the chaos with the media died down. That worked out for Peter. He didn’t want to be without Mr. Stark or May.

It didn’t work out so well for Mr. Westcott. The press had a field day with his mugshot. The bruises around his eyes and his on his face looked like a nightmare. Peter wondered if Mr. Westcott could see past the bruises when he looked in the mirror.

Peter’s bruises were invisible, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there, wouldn't always be there after what happened in that classroom. He could look past his, though. He never saw a victim staring back at him when he looked in the mirror. Mr. Stark and May and even Pepper had it drilled into him that he wasn’t. Not a victim. Just a son with a lot of parents who would kill for him, and one who almost did.


End file.
